Category: entertainment

Blues-y Blues

smackyjackjack1 Comment

In the past, I’ve blogged about all-time greatest guitar player Robert Johnson. But I mean, its pretty hard to cover the blues in just one blog. In this one, I’ll try to go over just a few of my favorite blues players.

Firstly, I want to just bring up Sister Rosetta Tharpe. If you could, picture Chuck Berry as a Baptist woman. Except instead of an ES3-35, she had an SG. Yeah. Like this guy.

It’s pretty hard to get much cooler than Angus Young or Sister Tharpe. Set your sights high kids! Don’t believe me?


Now you do.

Now, I always think about what my “desert island” albums would be (5 albums I can take to be stranded on a desert island with), and they always change. But one constant is Super Blues.

Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Little Walter and Otis Spann. I really don’t see what else needs to be said about this album. If you don’t have it, go get it. Well, I mean, only if you like music I guess.

Okay, one last person, but just because his new album just came out. Gary Clark Jr. takes the cake for one of the best NEW blues artists going right now. Blak and Blu came out on Oct. 25th, and, consequently, is the only album I’ve ever pre-ordered.  Clark has some serious soul in this album, swinging between R&B to old school blues. Go get it, but here’s a taste (at the Crossroads festival no less).

Plague Inc.-Fun but Deadly!

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While reviewing my most recent blog, I came to the mindset that maybe I should write something that’s got nothing to do with sports!

I know you’re all surprised but this is pretty cool. I recently downloaded a new app on my iPad called “Plague Inc.”. This simulator enables the player to take control of their very own disease and attempt to infect and (end result) completely annihilate the entire human race. Imagine sending the humans into complete extinction.

Considering I’m not human (ha), I see literally no controversy of any kind with this game. It’s not like you’re running around with guns and blowing the heads off of zombies. There’s no gore whatsoever. There’s no blood. The only thing possibly traumatic about this game is the principle that you are, in fact eliminating everyone on the planet.

There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m gonna talk a little bit about some problems I see with the game.

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The Jaguar E Type

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The 1961 Jaguar E type is my favorite car of all time.

Its looks feel as though they were forged by the wind flowing over it at high speed. The wheel arches flow over the tires like rapids pass over stones in a river.

The “barely there” bumper looks as though it is trying to hold back the beast that is the E type.

Classic 60s english car design elegance. The whole car seems to be in perfect proportion. From the opening in the front to the taillights. This car exudes beauty more than any car I have ever seen.

Alas, this car was built in the 60s and there have been many advancements in both manufacturing quality and safety. So this beauty was tarnished by the ages. The more “modern” E type, the 1974, was ruined by some of the most atrocious bumpers I have ever seen in my entire life.
A company named Eagle thought that this was a poor way to say goodbye to one of the most gorgeous cars of all time. They chose to modernize the car. Keep the classic look, but revamp what is under the hood. It turned out exactly as I had hoped.

This is near perfection. The bumper was done away with altogether. The car looks smoother than I ever could have thought.

This is a dream come true in vehicular form.

Don’t Worry About It

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This past Saturday our football team had our last league game against the Laguna Blanca Owls.

Contrary to how I was feeling going into this game, and what I wished had happened, we did not end up winning, but lost our fifth consecutive game.

Sadly this season came to an end sooner than I had hoped, and not the way I wanted to leave the field.

We finished with a final score of 44-26.

That is much closer than some games we have played, and once again we played a great second half, but it takes more than that to win football games.

We did not start off with a defense that was aggressive enough to set the tone early.

While we did stuff many plays, the Owls were able to put points up with more ease than they should have had.

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Small Things Lover.

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I am always obsessed with the small things.

According to Guinness World Records, the smallest horse in the world is a horse named Tamberlina of the U.S. state of Missouri.

However, this little guy may soon take its place. Born in April 2010, in Barnstead, New Hampshire, the three-day old pinto stallion, Einstein, is just 14 inches high and weighs only an incredible 6lbs.

Dr Rachel Wagner, Einstein’s co-owner, claims that “the Guinness Book of Records lists the smallest newborn horse as weighing just 9lbs.”

From Oprah to travelling across the U.S. it has certainly been an eventful first year for Einstein, the world’s smallest stallion, as he approaches his birthday.

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Country!

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You have to hand it to them, country music singers can say some pretty stupid stuff.

That right there is one of my favorite clips on youtube. When even the three stooges on Fox and Friends make weird faces at what you say, you know you’ve got some problems.

But other than the F-150-driving, ‘Murica-loving xenophobes like Hank Williams Jr. and Toby Keith country has some pretty awesome musicians. Hank Williams SENIOR, Jimmie Rodgers and even, to a point, Johnny Cash know how to carry a tune.  As far as the greatest songs of ALL TIME go, I’m so lonesome I could cry is up in the top three. TB Blues makes it up there too (just go listen to the slide on that song).

As far as “new” country goes (I put new in italics because it’s not really new), BR5-49 takes the cake as the best. This type of country can be enjoyed by every Prius driving, Cafe Late drinking xenophobe who likes good music. Just…forget about Hank Williams Jr. and listen to some good country.

World of Color.

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Art is a mysterious world. Different culture produces different kinds of arts. As for my experience with ART, Chinese Watercolor is my favorite way to express this world.

Even though water color art actually originated in Europe, the Chinese were quite familiar with the use of the brush as they were expert calligraphers that worked with their own tools – brush and ink. The origin of it can be traced back to about 2000 years ago.

Initially the Chinese artists focused on realistic expression of their subject matter. This approach produced some fantastic paintings that displayed intricate detailing and an intelligent use of color.

Later on the Chinese experimented by adopting different techniques such as abstraction and exaggeration and other new techniques such as transfiguration and decoration. Colors are used in the two mayor styles of Chinese painting, in the detailed, more academic style called kung-pi (gongbi) and in the spontaneous style hsieh-i (xieyi).

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V for Vendetta

smackyjackjack1 Comment

I’ve blogged about some of my favorite movies before, but I have yet to mention one of my favorite movies of all time. V for Vendetta is the story of a dystopian United Kingdom  that is dominated by a fascist and citizen-censoring political party. The film’s protagonist, V, wears a Guy Fawkes mask to honor his hero…Guy Fawkes.

Now, I just want to say one thing before I continue talking about the film. As  much as I respect Guy Fawkes for protesting a government he considered to be immoral, his motives have to be questioned. I mean, all he really was was a religious fanatic.  I’m not very…keen on those.

Now back to V for Vendetta. The film is incredible for a couple of reasons. The acting is obviously amazing. Natalie Portman is at her A game. This is by far her best preformance in a movie.  Hugo Weaving (yes, the elf from Lord of the Rings) delivers an unparallelled performance as V. We could read pretty far into this and say that his performance (as well as Alan Moore’s genius) sparked one or two movements in the world.

That’s the final reason why I love this movie. The film’s message is one that is deeply important today. “By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.” This is V’s peronal motto. It encompasses the film’s incredible message. The truth will come out about governments, and when it does, the people will fight back. In this modern day, there are many V-like figures. These are the men who are making a difference in today’s world, and the ones who are making the world more transparent.

Street Art Revolution

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I have always loved art, but not so much in a gallery, while I appreciate it, what really gets me happy is street art.

Street art is one of those things that you always have to appreciate.

I’m not saying all the ugly gang tags on the side of a bridge, but when you see something that someone has taken time to do, and invested more than just money into you have to stop and think about it.

Street art is an ever growing movement.

When people see actual street art and call it graffiti, it actually isn’t correct.

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A point

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A point

A location in the universe of indeterminate size and mass

This is the beginning

A focused point of unfathomable energy

Expansion.

The celestial bodies begin to drift away

Hydrogen begins to react with itself as it becomes helium

The elements form together inside stars and through the explosive power of supernovas

The folds of gravity bring these pieces together

The universe expands constantly

never stopping

never slowing

it pushes beyond its edges and speeds toward some unfathomable edge

The stars fascinate me

How some flash of light millions of years ago

manages to hit my retinas and get deciphered by my brain to be defined as

a single point of light in an endless dark abyss.

The journey of trillions of miles over millions of years only to hit a retina in the eye of a person on

a solitary rock orbiting a giant burning ball of gas

and there are people too focused on the happenings of the Kardashians to notice.